❤️🏊‍♀️🧜‍♀️Beacon Cove

It's summer 1947 on the English Riviera. Torquay is enjoying the beginning of a post-war golden era and its recovery as a major tourist resort.

Featuring prominently in every tourist brochure is The Marine Spa, the town's centre of health, dance and socialising. Next year it will be used as the main press headquarters for the water events that Torquay will host for the Olympics Games.

Flying from above you can see the scale of the complex. There are twin wings of treatment rooms on the Haldon Pier facade either side of a double-height cooling lounge. The Spa Ballroom appears temple-like in the centre with internal doors into the longest vita-glass sun lounge in the country. The swimming pool with its great glass skylight and rooftop viewing platform also has three Roman-style arched windows looking out on to Beacon Cove.

The Cove is the Locals' Beach and always busy in the summer. It has a handsome Café and easy access from a ramp running down the side of the Spa's pool.

A great irony and benefit of modern technology is that it is now making it possible to show you 77 year-old images almost as if they were taken today. Of course, everything you see here is now somewhat different.